How one AR smiths lubes the AR

[Mr.T]

That's all I use for all my arsenals is straight up (no mix) Mobile Synthetic Oil. I shoots USPSA, Steel, IDPA, 2gun, Combat Match and 3 guns. I don't have a single issue with motor oil that causes weapons to malfunction. BTW: I lube my AR BCG/Upper really wet, everywhere regardless of what the YouTube video warning. When it is time to clean, take cloth/paper towel and just wipes off the carbon build up, clean it with Mobile, and re-lubes. Try it, you'll see if I'm full of BS or not.

 

[460Rom]

"Machine Gunner's Oil"
Sprinco.com

 

[FrommerStop]

That's all I use for all my arsenals is straight up (no mix) Mobile Synthetic Oil. I shoots USPSA, Steel, IDPA, 2gun, Combat Match and 3 guns. I don't have a single issue with motor oil that causes weapons to malfunction. BTW: I lube my AR BCG/Upper really wet, everywhere regardless of what the YouTube video warning. When it is time to clean, take cloth/paper towel and just wipes off the carbon build up, clean it with Mobile, and re-lubes. Try it, you'll see if I'm full of BS or not.

On oil in the chamber, it will increase the thrust again the bolt face. In theory that means more stress on the lugs. The upside might be that chamber remains cleaner and so function under adverse conditions is better.

 

[wildrider666]

Ugh! Again?

 

[Mr.T]

On oil in the chamber, it will increase the thrust again the bolt face. In theory that means more stress on the lugs. The upside might be that chamber remains cleaner and so function under adverse conditions is better.

Adverse condition - Cold, rain, mud with trusty Mobile 1 Synthetic Oil on my AR and Glock 35. I've competed 4yr 1mnth and 3wk, and racked up total of 120 matches so far. ()

 

[pete repete]

in beirut we couldnt get lsa/clp for some stupid reason. we used wheel bearing grease. worked fine.

 

[Mr.T]

in beirut we couldnt get lsa/clp for some stupid reason. we used wheel bearing grease. worked fine.

Boom! That is outstanding... Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!

 

[MauserLarry]

That's all I use for all my arsenals is straight up (no mix) Mobile Synthetic Oil. I shoots USPSA, Steel, IDPA, 2gun, Combat Match and 3 guns. I don't have a single issue with motor oil that causes weapons to malfunction. BTW: I lube my AR BCG/Upper really wet, everywhere regardless of what the YouTube video warning. When it is time to clean, take cloth/paper towel and just wipes off the carbon build up, clean it with Mobile, and re-lubes. Try it, you'll see if I'm full of BS or not.

I'm beginning to think "Oil is oil". What ever you use if it works for you, use it.

 

[FrommerStop]

I'm beginning to think "Oil is oil". What ever you use if it works for you, use it.

I would say quality oil is oil you can use. Automotive oil is good to go.

 

[wildrider666]

Here's my opinion no shit answer: First the "lube" on cycling wear surfaces is all we care about for "What Lube". Second were not concerned with freezing in our beautiful South but we're not going to pack it solid with grease either. An AR rifle reciever will not get more than 1/5th as hot as the barrel. An AR barrel cherries out at approximately 1500°F (this is melting gas tube territory). The coolest temp points on a HOT barrel are above the chamber and second is extending two to four inches forward of the chamber (Lab Testing, M16A1, 1975). These areas are cooled by heat sink and airflow during extraction/feeding. Your Bolt and BCG are similarly cooled by airflow while cycling. Worse case with a cherry hot barrel, the receiver would be 300°F. Further, informal tests with a Colt M4, Ruger 556 and H&K 416: three back to back mag dumps did not raise reciever temps above 130°F. For the internals (cycling/contact areas), you now know rough estimates of temps your lubricant must remain effective. The lower end 130°F is easy enough, the 300°F (if your going to shoot it that hard) requires a little research. You need to find the Boiling Point, Smoke Point/Burning Point of the lube. This is the temp the lube begins to fail: loosing its viscosity, subtension/lubricity, heat resistant properties. Claims that remaing residue will maintain lubrication are B.S.: they don't say it will maintain the SAME Level of lubrication performance. Graphite will act as a lubricant too but its abrasive as its does so. Of equal importance is the lubes ability to cling where applied and its resistance to water wash out/displacement and water break down.

ATF Detergents makes gun cleaning easier. Well, there's more detergency in motor oil because it needs to remove soot and carbon not found in transmissions. Transmission are not subjected to the same heat and wear as an engine, Servicing intervals make that clear. If trans fluid was better for higher heat and friction we would be using it in engines. Trans fluid is more about the "hydraulics/pressures",compression resistance (that's in a pressurized system not between two open surfaces) and ability to resist shear break down common to meshing gears. Our cycling and lockup is not like that. "More" is not better when its characteristics are unnecessary.

Let's look closer. We want lubricants to stay in place and not break down. We want detergents/cleaners to remove carbon which builds and sticks better than the lubricants. WTH? This is pretty much the fault of some military procurement bean counter that decided it was much easier to buy, track, inventory and ship one item instead of two, thereby saving time and money. In short, they combined cleaner and lube into a single product which didn't clean nor lube as well as the two items it replaced. It was so bad the originals were still kept in inventory for use on medium and heavy machineguns! Grunts had to scrub the crap out of their rifles and "run them wet" to mantain function in the Bush. This was year after the" you don't need to clean them" myth, a few thousand were shipped without cleaning kits available.

Engine oils. Synthetics are superior across the board in all areas of performance in engines and other applications. Mobile 1 will pour at -45°F, Flash Point 392°F , Mfr says outstanding protection performance to 500°F (Flash vs Performance temps are not contradicting). I'm not pushing this product, it's just an example. The basic reason synthetics are superior is due to the fact mineral oil molecules break down in different sizes (picture two flat surfaces with several different size wheels between them trying to spport the load); synthetics remain totally uniform in size, which fully supports the lubricity barrier providing greater protection and service life.

RemOil. Product Class: Thin film lubricant, Flash Point 105°F, Boiling Range 300°- 392°F..

Mobil ATF 220. Flash Point 351°F, Boiling Point 600°F,
WD-40 Flash Point 138°F, Boiling Point 361° - 369°F

Smoke Point °F
Canola oil. 428°- 446°
Safflower oil 510° (refined)

Dry guns won't work for long. Just about any lubricant will work for limited casual use without drenching it. Lube just the reguired areas well and don't give dirt/sand an anchor point for buildup. Its not a Gun Sin to add lube between cleanings, just don't be caught dead with a dry gun! Run them wet if its the only way they run but that's not how they are supposed to run: somethings wrong IMHO. Do we run pistols wet?

Do YOUR homework, Read the product MSDS, Pick your poison.

If it "Slides": I grease it. If it "Pivots": I oil it. For storage: RigRag(TM) applicator and grease on all metal surfaces.

YMMV and as long as it works for you: great.

 

[Mr.T]

Here's my opinion no shit answer: First the "lube" on cycling wear surfaces is all we care about for "What Lube". Second were not concerned with freezing in our beautiful South but we're not going to pack it solid with grease either. An AR rifle reciever will not get more than 1/5th as hot as the barrel. An AR barrel cherries out at approximately 1500°F (this is melting gas tube territory). The coolest temp points on a HOT barrel are above the chamber and second is extending two to four inches forward of the chamber (Lab Testing, M16A1, 1975). These areas are cooled by heat sink and airflow during extraction/feeding. Your Bolt and BCG are similarly cooled by airflow while cycling. Worse case with a cherry hot barrel, the receiver would be 300°F. Further, informal tests with a Colt M4, Ruger 556 and H&K 416: three back to back mag dumps did not raise reciever temps above 130°F. For the internals (cycling/contact areas), you now know rough estimates of temps your lubricant must remain effective. The lower end 130°F is easy enough, the 300°F (if your going to shoot it that hard) requires a little research. You need to find the Boiling Point, Smoke Point/Burning Point of the lube. This is the temp the lube begins to fail: loosing its viscosity, subtension/lubricity, heat resistant properties. Claims that remaing residue will maintain lubrication are B.S.: they don't say it will maintain the SAME Level of lubrication performance. Graphite will act as a lubricant too but its abrasive as its does so. Of equal importance is the lubes ability to cling where applied and its resistance to water wash out/displacement and water break down.

ATF Detergents makes gun cleaning easier. Well, there's more detergency in motor oil because it needs to remove soot and carbon not found in transmissions. Transmission are not subjected to the same heat and wear as an engine, Servicing intervals make that clear. If trans fluid was better for higher heat and friction we would be using it in engines. Trans fluid is more about the "hydraulics/pressures",compression resistance (that's in a pressurized system not between two open surfaces) and ability to resist shear break down common to meshing gears. Our cycling and lockup is not like that. "More" is not better when its characteristics are unnecessary.

Let's look closer. We want lubricants to stay in place and not break down. We want detergents/cleaners to remove carbon which builds and sticks better than the lubricants. WTH? This is pretty much the fault of some military procurement bean counter that decided it was much easier to buy, track, inventory and ship one item instead of two, thereby saving time and money. In short, they combined cleaner and lube into a single product which didn't clean nor lube as well as the two items it replaced. It was so bad the originals were still kept in inventory for use on medium and heavy machineguns! Grunts had to scrub the crap out of their rifles and "run them wet" to mantain function in the Bush. This was year after the" you don't need to clean them" myth, a few thousand were shipped without cleaning kits available.

Engine oils. Synthetics are superior across the board in all areas of performance in engines and other applications. Mobile 1 will pour at -45°F, Flash Point 392°F , Mfr says outstanding protection performance to 500°F (Flash vs Performance temps are not contradicting). I'm not pushing this product, it's just an example. The basic reason synthetics are superior is due to the fact mineral oil molecules break down in different sizes (picture two flat surfaces with several different size wheels between them trying to spport the load); synthetics remain totally uniform in size, which fully supports the lubricity barrier providing greater protection and service life.

RemOil. Product Class: Thin film lubricant, Flash Point 105°F, Boiling Range 300°- 392°F..

Mobil ATF 220. Flash Point 351°F, Boiling Point 600°F,
WD-40 Flash Point 138°F, Boiling Point 361° - 369°F

Smoke Point °F
Canola oil. 428°- 446°
Safflower oil 510° (refined)

Dry guns won't work for long. Just about any lubricant will work for limited casual use without drenching it. Lube just the reguired areas well and don't give dirt/sand an anchor point for buildup. Its not a Gun Sin to add lube between cleanings, just don't be caught dead with a dry gun! Run them wet if its the only way they run but that's not how they are supposed to run: somethings wrong IMHO. Do we run pistols wet?

Do YOUR homework, Read the product MSDS, Pick your poison.

If it "Slides": I grease it. If it "Pivots": I oil it. For storage: RigRag(TM) applicator and grease on all metal surfaces.

YMMV and as long as it works for you: great.

I thought, I was back in Thermo Dynamic and Chem Courses at Univ S. AL again after reading your post. LOL... Happy to see someone uses apply engineering.

 

[SAWMAN]

I really believe that properly lubing your firearms for the type of hunting or shooting that you do,and in the environment that you do it in,is REALLY NOT THAT COMPLECATED.
There is a distinct difference between a gun owner that simply does not give a shit about their expensive equipment,and the owner that does.
The owner that does,owns weapons that are in the condition that mine are in. I am never too busy to be able to properly maintain my equipment. My weapons never have to be subjected to being shot hundreds of times before a cleaning and re-lubeing. They also never,EVER,get hot enough that they burn your hands and melt your Mag Puls.
Common sense preventive and post shooting maintance is good enough for me. Even in the days that I would shoot hundreds and hundreds of rds thru my weapons,when we got back "home" we ALWAYS cleaned and re-lubed. And we did this BEFORE we showered,slept,shaved,or shit. ALWAYS !! --- SAWMAN

 

[oneshot]

I'm still looking for the grease ports for my grease gun . should I replace them , think they have been removed. so when I take my truck in I can get my rifle down maybe get a discount. My 5 cents jj

 

[Rebel_Rider1969]

Well it looks like I need to re evaluate my use of remoil and clean my lightweight build. Was trying to get an idea of when it would fail from being dirty also breakin the build. 450 ish rounds thru it with 0 issues.

 

[Rebel_Rider1969]

An article on rem oil. Read something like this when choosing a lube.

Remington "Rem" Oil Review (Does It Deserve The Bad Rep?) | SurvivalMag

Is Rem Oil any good? In this review, I'll take a look at Rem Oil and whether it's as "runny" as people say.

survivalmag.net

 

[SAWMAN]

I have three BCG's at JJ's now being drilled and tapped for the zeus type grease fittings.
Thinking about installing one on each side of my lowers also.
Grease guns and the big tubes of grease are cheap at Harbor Freight. They have the pneumatic ones also for the class takers,trainers,and hard core competitors.
Gotta admit,learned alot from all the above. ---- SAWMAN

 

[wildrider666]

FWIW Mil-L and greases:
For the Old School of hard knocks folks we have
A. Mil-G-46003. It's based on M14 tests that found Lubriplate 130 the superior lubricant and wrote the Mil Spec to match it. Great in hot/wet with the heavier M14 cyclic operation but a bit too thick for a AR: that's apparent when the bottom temp limit is only 32°F!. Discontinued Spec.

B. "LSA" MIL-L- 46000C (C is third revision) Boiling Point 660°F, Flash Point 293°F. Active Spec.

"MIL-L-46000C (W/ AMENDMENT 1), MILITARY SPECIFICATION: LUBRICANT, SEMI-FLUID (AUTOMATIC WEAPONS) (27-OCT-2011)., Reactivated after 15 September 2011 and may be used for new and existing designs and acquisitions. This specification is approved for use by all Departments and Agencies of the Department of Defense. This specification covers a semi-fluid lubricant for automatic weapons operating within a temperature range of -54 degrees to +127 degrees C (-65 degrees to +260 F degrees ), (See 6.1) The lubricant is identified by Military Symbol LSA and NATO Code Number 0-158 (6.7)."

LSA was referenced as a "grease" even though packaging refered to it as "oil". Now its a "Semi-Fluid" and that's NGLI Grade 00 rated.

Not all greases have lubricating properties, "Rig"; I mentioned in #30 is a protectant rust inhibitor and not a Lubricant.

The lubricant in grease IS oil, then additives are added to achieve the desired preformance characteristics. There are nine Grades/Consistancy of lubricating grease: 6 Block, 5 Very stiff, 4 Stiff, 3 Mediun, 2 Medium soft, 1 Soft, 0 Very Soft, 00 Semi-fluid and 000 Fluid. We see where Automatic Weapons Lube Mil-L-46000C being Grade 00 falls in the Scale, well below the #2 we read about on many gun forums. "Thick" greases don't flow into nooks nd crannies on their own like semi-fluids and oils do. Thick stuff needs placement, mechanical movement or heat to thin and spread in tight spots but these thick greases are designed to resist heat, so is the selected grease actually getting where it needs to be IOT lube and reduce wear? This is why I recommend grease for sliding contact surfaces and oil for pivoting contact points. BCG external: grease. Exterior Bolt, internal BCG and cam pin contact surfaces: oil.

 

[SAWMAN]

JAMES - - -> Your side charger BCG's are already set up to accept a zeus fitting. Just replace the charging handle with a zeus fitting. I got a hand full that I will give you.
JJ is making a thread adaptor for us right now. Just talked to him on the phone. --- SAWMAN

 

[TackleberryMCS]

For me, I have always found it very easy and relatively inexpensive to use Break-Free CLP. A little goes a long way.

 

[wildrider666]

No zerk fitting required for these (Lol):

MIL-COMM TW25B® Extreme Performance Gun Grease
Abbey Silicone Gun Grease
Birchwood Casey SNO Universal Gun Grease
Breakthrough Clean Technologies Battle Born Grease
Brian Enos’s Slide-Glide Gun Lube
G-96 Rapid-Fire Gun Grease & Liquid Gun Grease
Glock Copper Gun Grease
Grizzly Grease Non-Toxic CLP
Gun Butter Trigger and Locking Lug Grease
Hoppe’s No.9 Black Gun Grease
Lucas Oil Extreme Duty Gun Grease
M-Pro 7 Synthetic Grease
Militec-1 Grease
MPT Gun Grease
Otis Firearm Grease
Plastilube Rifle Grease
Pro-Shot Pro-Gold Gun Care Lubricant
Rand Hawg Weapon Grease
Shooter’s Choice Synthetic All-Weather High-Tech Gun Grease
Sinclair International Bolt Grease
SlickShot USA Gun Grease
Slip 2000 Extreme Weapons Grease
Steel Shield Weapon Shield Grease
Tetra Gun Grease
Western Powders Montana X-Treme Gun Grease
Wilson Combat Ultima-Lube II Grease
XF-7 Gun Grease

Note: Above greases are intended for firearm cyclic lubrication. I didn't list Preservative/Corrosion inhibitors or Anti-seize (Choke and Barrel/Nut) type grease.